Tech Education Doesn’t Happen in the Classroom

Tyler Menezes:

The field of technology is the odd kid in its class.
From its outset it’s been an outlier. Modern computing sprung rather quickly out of nowhere late into our history as a species. However few things [1] before or since have had such a profound impact on the world as the development of computing and circuits. It’s clear to see that no other field of study can hope to compete – they’ve all been revolutionized by (and in many cases started or brought to prominence because of) technology.
But unfortunately, technology is an outlier for another reason: technology education is severely underfunded. Demand for computer scientists, for example, is exceeded by the supply at a ratio of more than 2:1 [2].
Computer science education is also vastly under-researched. Even using a CS degree as a filter [3], the difficulty finding graduates who actually know a programming language or have any critical thinking skills is an extremely common complaint I’ve heard from those in charge of hiring at larger firms. It’s clear that technology is an extremely easy space to understand, but requires a lot of hands-on experience to master.